Antiquity relates that laymen show a spirit of hostility towards the clergy, ' wrote Pope Boniface VIII in 1296, ‘and it is clearly proved by the experience of the present time.' Having uttered this melancholy reflection, in his bull Clerics laicos, Boniface went on to make a numbe r of pronouncements calculated to ensure that the warfare continued. Clerics were not to Pay taxes; those who did so, and secular officials who collected the money from them, were to be excommunicated. Universities who defended the practice of Clerical taxation were to be placed under interdict: and those under sentence of excommunication or interdict were not be absolved, except at the moment of death, without the express authori ty of the papacy. Four years after this bellicose pronouncement, he issued a further one, Un am Sanct am, which attempted to define the claims of his caste. Christianity, he — wrote, provides for two swords, the Spiritual and the temporal: Both are in the power of the church, the spiritual sword and the material. But the latter is to be used for the church, the former by her; the former by the priest, the latter by kings and captains but at the will and by the permission of the priest. The one sword, therefore, should be under the other and temporal authority subject to spiritual. ... If, therefore, the earthly power, it shall be judged by the Spiritual power. But if the spiritual power, it can only be judged by God, not by man...For this authority, though given to a man and exercised by a man, is not human, but rather divine...Furthermore, we declare, state, define and pronounce that it is altogether necessary to salvation for every human creature to be subject to the Roman pontiff. One of the great tragedies of human history ~ and the central tragedy of Christianity - is the break-up of the harmonious world-order which had evolved, in the Dark Ages, on a Christian basis. Men had agreed, or at least had appeared to agree, on an all-enveloping theory of society which not only aligned virtue with law and practice, but allotted to everyone in it precise, Christian-orientated tasks. There need be no arguments or divisions because everyone endorsed the principles on which the system was run. They had to. Membership of the society, and acceptance of its rules, was ensured by baptism, which was compulsory and irrevocable. The unbaptized, that is the Jews, were not members of the society at all; their lives were spared but otherwise they had no rights. Those who, in effect, renounced their baptism by infidelity or heresy, were killed. For the remainder, there was total agreement and total commitment. The points on which men argued were slender, compared to the huge areas of complete acquiescence which embraced almost every aspect of their lives. Yet these slender points of difference were important, and they tended to enlarge themselves. There were flaws in the theory of society, reflected in its imagery. If society was a body, what made up its directing head? Was it Christ, who thus personally directed both arms, one - the secular rulers - wielding the temporal sword, the other - the Church - handling the spiritual one? But if Christ directed, who was his earthly vicar? There was no real agreement on this issue. The popes had been claiming to be vicars of St Peter since very early times. Later, they tended to raise this claim, and call themselves vicars of Christ. But kings, too, and a fortiori emperors, claimed a divine vicariate derived from their coronation: sometimes it was of God the Father, sometimes of Christ; when it was the former, the Christ-vicariate, being in some way inferior, was relegated to the Church. Now none of this should have mattered in the slightest. Since the vicarial direction, in all cases, was coming from the same source - Heaven - and since, presumably, there was no disagreement between the Father and the Son and St Peter, it should have made no difference who was vicar of whom. The direction would be the same, and all would obey. Alas, experience showed that this did not always happen. So Christian theory had an answer to this point. There could be wicked emperors, kings, popes, bishops. They represented the work of the Devil, who might well contrive, from time to time, to get one of his own elected to such offices. But this would soon become manifest: God would then arrange 40